 Mets and Cubs are greeted before game in Tokyo Dome, 20 years ago. Oh, my goodness, it was 20 years ago. Today, the NYT reprinted an article I wrote 20 years ago today, on the Mets-Cubs league game in Tokyo. It was a pleasant surprise to be back in the paper and be reminded of a great trip and how much I love visiting Japan. This, at a time when there is much sadness at postponing the Tokyo Olympics to next year. ごめんなさい Gomen'nasai (I am sorry) The article jumped out of the Monday sports section – about Benny Agbayani’s grand-slam, pinch-hit homer in the 11th inning that defeated the Cubs. /www.nytimes.com/2000/03/31/sports/baseball-against-the-odds-agbayani-gets-mets-home-even.html?searchResultPosition=1 It was the end of a grand assignment – two Mets exhibitions around Tokyo, plus two official games, showing me how much the Japanese fans know about baseball, and America. It kicked off so many memories: ---Japanese fans booing good-heartedly when activist Mets manager Bobby Valentine (with his love and knowledge of Japan) had Sammy Sosa walked intentionally with first base open. “Japanese fans never boo the manager for this,” a Japanese reporter told me. “But they know it is normal in American baseball.” How cool – like young couples on Friday date night, going to TGIFriday’s glittering outlets all over Tokyo, for ribs and fries. ---Standing outside the Tokyo Dome that week, watching fans congregate and spotting a woman wearing a Mets uniform with Swoboda 4 on the back. Haruko told me, in quite good English, that she was a Mets fan – had seen a Nolan Ryan no-hitter in the States (for the Angels) and in fact had stayed with Ron and Cecilia Swoboda in New Orleans. ---The great Ernie Banks, retired by then, sidling up to me around the batting cage and repeating his iconic phrase: “Let’s play two.” ---How I spotted Masanori Murakami, the first Japanese national to play in the American majors – I covered that game, too, in 1964 – and re-introduced him to the Mets’ roving pitching coach, Alvin Jackson, who was his opponent in that epic debut. They laughed and shook hands and chatted, so comfortable with each other, as old players are. Alvin passed last year; I was so honored to have shared that moment with him. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/31/sports/sports-of-the-times-murakami-will-always-be-first.html?searchResultPosition=1 My other memories of that trip are less baseball-centric: ---Zonked on jet lag, taking my wife on the Tokyo subway, telling her how easy it would be, and emerging in sunny Ueno Park for a nice stress-free walk (and subsequent first meal in a neighborhood) ---Being driven from bustling Tokyo to a famous shrine by our former Long Island neighbors, Fumio and Akie, the nicest couple. Originally from Osaka, Fumio did not know every inch of Tokyo – does anybody? – but he relied on a novelty GPS built into his dashboard, and he negotiated all the tight little turns and ramps to get us on a freeway to a leafy shrine. --- Salarymen – and women – stopping to offer us directions when we appeared baffled by the odd numbering systems. --- After the baseball work, visiting historic Kyoto, where a woman addressed my wife in French; she had lived in France and loved to use that language. My wife, who speaks some French, sat on a bench and they chatted for an hour, about La Belle France. ---And finally, since it was 20 years ago this week, having people in Kyoto apologize to us because the cherry blossoms were late. In this grim spring, I think of all the places we cannot go, but when I think of baseball…and Japan….and friends….and spring...and having been privileged to go places and write stories, the day seems better.  Haruko sent me this photo the other day, as we lamented the disruption of baseball. She mentioned the "transient beauty" of cherry blossoms, and quickly added that she and her brother did not make the pilgrimage this year.  The Ballpark is Self-Quarantining Jacob DeGrom was supposed to throw the first pitch to the champion Washington Nationals, a few miles west of me, on a sunny, cool day.
Instead, I was going to write something about the absence of baseball. Then I read about a valued colleague who passed the other day, from the virus, and that delivered another reality check. We have enough reminders that life is not normal – and when will it be again? I go out in our town just enough to run a few errands. The other day we ordered takeout from one of our favorite places in our town. It was gut-wrenching to join a small line indoors, six feet of separation, picking up packages. It was mid-day. The place should have been packed with moms and their squeaky little kids, with rambunctious teen-agers from the high school, with working people on a break. Instead, chairs were upturned on tables and a few workers were packing up pizza and regular meals for the customers. A lady in the drive-in window at the bank smiled at me from behind the glass. From my car, I nodded at the crossing guard near the post office. The Town Dock was blocked off. Normally, dozens of people would be parking at mid-day, to sniff the salty bay and maybe take a walk. I don’t need to discuss the ominous details about the virus in the NYT. Did you see those amazing charts – online and in “the paper?” https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/03/22/world/coronavirus-spread.html We get the paper delivered every morning in blue bags, straight from my friends at the plant in Queens. They cannot work from home. Be safe, all of you. Our family sounds okay – six other adults working at their homes, three younger ones doing schoolwork online, two others also safe, last we heard. My wife was on this early, urging me not to ride the subway, see old friends for lunch. We are getting by. Blessed. But there is the anxiety – expressed by doctors and nurses who go on TV, talking of shortages, displaying what soldiers in combat call The Thousand-Yard Stare. They are on the front line, sent in without the right equipment, in a nation nominally in charge of a business failure who was already a dangerous fool when people voted for him. Now the combat is raging. Leaders like Andrew Cuomo try to pull things together, shaming “the government” into getting a clue. Friend of mine is self-quarantined in his apartment. His doctor thinks he might have the virus, but cannot help him get a test. “Opening Day,” I texted. “Robin Roberts vs. Don Newcombe.” That is our generation. The Brooklyn Dodgers were our team. Sometimes, for a few minutes, baseball will get you through. My man Mike From Northern Queens sent me a link about picking the best catchers in the history of every major-league franchise. Yogi and Campy. And some, from newer franchises out west, I hardly recognized the names of the choices. That is the beauty of baseball – the history, the meaningful statistics at all positions, never mind the new analytics. The arguments. Carter or Piazza? https://www.mlb.com/news/best-all-time-catcher-for-every-mlb-team Opening Day. Baseball fans believe there is nothing like it. So much tradition. My colleague Bill Lucey in Cleveland sent me a piece he wrote a few years ago about the history of presidents at Opening Day. https://www.wplucey.com/2011/03/comparing-us-presidents-love-of-baseball.html I remember in the early 80s, when the Mets’ opening day was snowed out, and I squawked, how nature could do this to us? Sports don’t cut it right now. I don’t care if the Olympics were postponed, or even the European soccer tournament. I wish I could concentrate on the Mets, fret about whether the Mets will finally give a steady position to Jeff McNeil, let him swing at the first pitch and get something going. I wish I could worry about the starting rotation, now that Noah Syndergaard is getting Tommy John surgery today. (Apparently this is considered essential surgery.) Yankee fans, other fans, bless their hearts, may have their own preoccupations. However baseball is not essential at the moment. What is essential is convincing our “leader” that instead of sending people back to work with a nasty virus on the loose – to save “his” economy – we need to stay in place, including baseball players and baseball fans and people who work at the ballpark. No Game Today. Of course. |
 With Dalai Lama, 1979
Loyal Reader Hansen Alexander has filed an interview with, of all people, me. It's on his blog. (Just past photo of rat!) My thanks for his interest. GV notesfromnewratcity.wordpress.com/blog/ MODERN LOVE:
David Vecsey's sweet tale of distant love before the Web, now NYT Podcast, narrated by Griffin Dunne. Please see: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/15/fashion/before-the-web-hearts-grew-silent.html?referer= Categories
All
|
